The GEM is the mechanism for monitoring and reporting on SDG4 (for all sub-goals) and on education in the other SDG’s. It is prepared by an independent team hosted by UNESCO.
The focus on this year’s report is on accountability. Despite strong progress in education, there are significant challenges to achieving the SDG 4, the global education goal. Faced with education challenges, the public wants to know who is responsible and policy-makers look for urgent solutions. But reaching SDG4 is often a collective enterprise. Accountability, therefore, does not easily rest with single actors.

The report shows the potential for education to propel progress towards all global goals outlines in the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG’s). It also shows that education needs a major transformation to fulfil that potential.

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments, the private sector, civil society and just people.
On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development officially came into force.

Global citizenship education (GCE) is one of the strategic areas of work for UNESCO’s Education Programme (2014-2017) and one of the three priorities of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) launched in September 2012.